WIN 20 - The Compounding Effect and Investing for Your Future with Sandy Franks

Welcome to win the Women Investing Network, the podcast where you can learn from successful entrepreneurs, business leaders and real estate investors who are winning in business and life. Learning from others is the fastest way to grow your skills, gain knowledge and avoid pitfalls so you can win. Join our hosts, Elizabeth Embry and Jason Hartman. Elizabeth is a seasoned real estate investor, experienced corporate executive and skilled mentor. Jason is a self made multimillionaire investor, entrepreneur and highly acclaimed thought leader. Together with their successful guests, you'll get the tools you'll need to win.

Welcome to another exciting episode of the.

Women Investing Network where we help women win in investing in life. This is Elizabeth Embry. I'm your co host for the Women Investing Network podcast and hopefully you've been enjoying the show so far and hopefully you've had time to rate and review and subscribe on itunes or wherever you get your podcasts. We sure do appreciate your feedback. So it's episode 20 and of course I'm super excited because episode 20 is book review time. And so today I'm going to be focusing on the book the Compounding Effect by Darren Hardy. He's the editor of Success magazine and or had been the editor for Success magazine. And he comes out of that Jim Rohn devotee camp that Tony Robbins and others followed. And I really like his words, his thoughts. So we'll get into that in a minute. But first I just wanted to wrap up some thoughts on the Venture Alliance Mastermind. I'm not sure that we got a chance to talk about these things. Jason and I were trying to connect so that I could record a podcast with him. You know, timing and travel and things that just didn't happen. But one of the things that I really love about the Mastermind is that the fact that we have this really exciting opportunity to learn from each other. It's called a hot seat. And so for those of you that have done masterminding, you're really familiar with the concept, but basically each person has about 20 minutes. They've got about five minutes to talk about the problem, the pain point, or the thing that they want others to provide feedback on. And we spend about 20 minutes brainstorming either solutions, feedback on the ideas, feedback on the challenges that they may be facing, then basically dogpiles improvement ideas or thoughts to solve the problem. The thing is, not only is the person in the hot seat getting the feedback, getting the thoughts, but everybody else is also learning from the conversation either how to prevent the challenge for themselves in the future, or really to figure out what to do if they were to run into a similar thing. One of the things that I think is really neat that comes out of those conversations, too, is the rich dialogue around what people are reading, the latest book on either improvement or business or diet that they might be focusing on. And you get this kind of smorgasbord of great books to further read, to further build your education. And for me, that's one of the best components of the Mastermind. And when I was thinking about this Compounding Effect book, one of the things that it really struck me about the book was the fact that Darren was referring a lot of other speakers and a lot of other writers and their specific books throughout the book. It's not so much a cookbook, a how to, as it is kind of a summary of. This is a starting point. And these are all of those other things. There's so many other things that you could and should be doing. Here's a way to get started. But then, as you continue your journey of success and improvement, you know, these are additional things to read. These are additional things to think about. I love it when authors provide their own unique content, But I also love when they provide the context of how they came about, these thoughts, where they learned them from, so that you can learn from those people as well. So our guest today is Sandy Franks, and she's the founder of the Women's Finance Alliance. She's got a great newsletter, has fantastic insight about the market, where things are going, how to understand the financial landscape, you know, and the thing that she and I talked about was the fact that to build true wealth, you have to, you know, leverage the compounding effect of time. You've got to make smart decisions, you've got to have discipline. But basically, you know, you have to establish the foundation for your compounding effect of wealth management to take hold in order to gain wealth. So let's get into the book. So I first became aware of Darren through Tony Robbins. And Tony actually wrote the preface in the introduction into the book. What he said was, the Compounding Effect is the operator's manual that teaches you how to own the system, how to control it, master it, and shape it into your needs and desires. Once you do, there's nothing that you can't obtain or achieve. Now you've got to imagine this with Tony's, like, amazing booming voice and his huge hands as he's, like, making all these hand gestures. But, man, holy heck. Master one skill and achieve everything. Okay, I'm in. You got it right. I'm hooked. Let's go. So Basically, the book is really small, you know, and I had read it, gosh, I don't know, years ago, I think it actually, when it first came out is when I read the book and it's pretty small, but I'd forgotten how powerful it was. So like I said, you know, you're repacking like all of these lessons, you know, these quotes, these statements from all these other authors and speakers. But basically it's a very slim how to book that just can really set you up for, well, for success, you know, no pun intended. Right. It sets you up with that foundation so that you can really go big. There are a lot of concepts that are repackaged from Roan, Brian Tracy, Tony Robbins, you know. He also touches on Kiyosaki and Covey, although he doesn't quote them in the book. He also talks about John Maxwell and a couple of others. So, I mean, like I said, I think it's kind of a neat amalgamation of a lot of things. Okay, so let's get into it, let's stop talking about it, let's talk about what's in the book. Okay, so the whole point of the book is small and smart choices that are consistent over time will give you huge results. And so he starts with this little story about these three friends. They're all kind of overweight, they're all doing fine, you know, they're all, you know, Joe average whatever guys doing, you know, having a wife and, you know, 2.5 kids and a job and that kind of thing. And one person makes no change, the other person decides to eat 125 calories less per day, you know, instead of watching so much tv, maybe do some self improvement type books, some audio while they're driving, instead of listening, listening to the news, they're gonna listen to some improvement tapes, whatever. And then the other person decides, oh, whatever, it's not that big of a deal, I'll eat 125 calories more. So maybe that's a half a Danish or a quarter of a Costco muffin. Those things are so huge, right? So anyway, so guy one makes no change. Guy two makes this small adjustment in his life. Guy three makes a small negative adjustment in his life. So, so we check in with these three folks. After five months, basically, there's no discernible difference. There's no real change. After 18 months, you're starting to see a little bit of a change. But after 31 months, friend 2 is down over 30 pounds, friend 3 is up over 30 pounds, and friend 1 is exactly as he was. So he breaks it down. 31 months equals 940 days. So 940 days times 125 calories a day, that's 117,500 calories. So basically, that's 33.5 pounds. Now, I mean, I get it, your diet is not just simple math or most people don't believe. It's just simple mathematics of food in, food out, exercise, whatever. But the point is really true. Basically, if you're making cognizant, conscious, smart decisions as you go along and every day, then that in aggregate it really impacts your health, your wealth, etc. Right. And it's an easy way for you to kind of grasp the concepts. So the most challenging concepts here in the compounding effect is that you have to keep working at things consistently and efficiently before you see payoff. And, you know, he talks in the book about the fact that people do get discouraged. They don't see a lot of change right away. They push really hard, they hire a trainer, but, you know, they don't see change right away. And that's pretty typical of most of us. We just get tired, like, ah, it's not working, whatever. You know, I put some money in my 401k, it didn't lead to thousands, or, you know, I bought one rental property. I'm not able to retire tomorrow. I don't get it, right? So it's putting these small things in place that gain power over time. One of the things that I really like about the book is the fact that they have these summary action steps, so putting the compounding effect to work for you. And he does have a website that has these worksheets, these PDFs and worksheets. And of course, you know, you get a lot of marketing, so you can go to his seminars and stuff too. But the worksheets are free and I think that they're pretty well done. And so it's the compounding effect.

In the notes to the show, we'll have the link to the site. But basically, you know, this is where you think, okay, now you're gonna have to take action. I told you something. Now, it's not just about listening to what I'm telling you. Now you have to go take action. And so what he's asking for is for you to start identifying those three things that you want to change in your life. You know, have a better relationship, lose weight, become more fit, be a better salesperson, whatever it might be, identify those things and start identifying what your habits are that are Conscious or unconscious, right? So your unconscious decisions become conscious by journaling. So talks about the importance of journaling. And he gave an example of a gratitude journal that he did for his wife. And I thought that this was really cool because we don't always notice the small things. So what he did was he. On one Thanksgiving Day, he decided he was going to log something he was grateful for about his wife every day. And at the end of the year, the next Thanksgiving, he gave his wife this gratitude journal. And, you know, it was not only a positive effect for her, she was like, my gosh, my husband thought about me. But it was really a positive change in him because by seeking to look for the good in somebody rather than, you know, they did that annoying thing again, they left the dirty dishes in the sink as opposed to putting it in the dish or whatever it is, then people fixate on. On the negative, right? Fixating on the positive of, you know, wow, they did that really tiny thing for me. They held the door for me, they took care of the dog poo in the living room, whatever it might be, right? That being grateful towards somebody really does affect and impact your attitude toward that person. So I thought that that was a pretty powerful example, right? Journaling helps you identify your problems and also can impact by making you completely aware of what you're doing. It will by default make you better at whatever it is you're trying to change. An example that I gave was, you know, that latte on the drive to work, that $4 coffee over a year becomes thousands of dollars. So over 10 years, the example of the $4 cup of coffee is $60 in three weeks, and then it's thousands in a year, but it's 51,000 in 20 years. So $51,000 in 20 years to get that latte on the way to work. And, gosh, what could you do with 51,000? Especially if you're putting that money aside and putting it into investments into education, into things that improve your life, maybe your gym membership. I mean, you could pay for lot of good and healthy things with, you know, $4 a day if you actually aggregate it over time. So he next goes into identifying the big why and really setting goals. So it's not enough to just know what you want to change. You have to have specific and identifiable goals. And you have to know what your big reason or catalyst for change is. And this is where, you know, the Tony Robbins, for me, the Tony Robbins thoughts of understanding the big why kind of blend into. You can really see how roan Infl both of these people quite a bit. But identifying the things that you want to change, then becoming aware of the decisions that help or hinder those focal areas, and then form a habit. In order to form a habit, you have to understand, you know, where you're going and what direction you want to go. And again, this is where he starts with. It's not enough to want to stop a bad thing. You've got to replace it with a good thing. So you can't just stop a bad habit. You have to start a good habit that steps over, that replaces that activity. So for instance, you know, watching three and a half hours of mind numbing TV every night or, you know, spending time with your kids and reading self improvement books or inspirational books or skill building books, you know, taking classes, free classes online. You know, if you want to learn more about a specific topic, there's always things like Coursera, which allow you to, you know, take college classes from Ivy League colleges for free, which is pretty cool, or for a really low, low price. But you know, as I said, he's kind of got a poo poo platter of these Ron esque leaders. And so one of the quotes that he pulled from John Maxwell, who I love, I love John Maxwell. He's got these great cards for identifying your values. So it's something that you should check out because it helped me with some team exercises to understand what our team values were and then as individuals, what our individual values were. And I think John Maxwell is just awesome. But anyway, John Maxwell said, you'll never change your life until you change something that you do daily. The secret of success is found in your daily routine. And you know, I think that's cool. So now we've talked about how we're identifying the things that we want to change. We're starting to become conscious of what we're doing by journaling. We're becoming conscious of the things that move us toward the, you know, the fat guy or the skinny guy. Right? We're doing the things that either are helping or are hurting our ability to be successful and then identifying the big catalyst that keeps those goals, those positive goals and habits, top of mind. So setting clear and measurable goals. So basically he gives you these kind of step by step, these six, you know, high priority steps in order to set these goals and make sure that you're achieving them. So set yourself up for success. So that's writing down the goals, understanding the space that you're wanting to improve. Think addition, not subtraction. So that's why we were just talking about your replacing bad habits with good habits. Go for pda, which is public display accountability. So declaring on your Facebook page, I'm going to lose, you know, 25 pounds by summer or I'm going to get my master's degree in my MBA by, you know, 2020 or whatever it is. You know, you're, you're letting your, your friends, your co workers, your partners, your group of people that you go to coffee with, whatever it is that you're going to achieve these goals, right? And then finding a success buddy. So somebody that's going to hold you accountable and somebody that you can hold accountable, which I think is really crucial, having somebody that you can have a partnership conversation with about trying to achieve these goals, trying to make these changes is often for me one of the best catalysts for actually staying on track, staying the course, and being able to attain the compounding effect targets. Right. Like you have to have in the example that we gave at the beginning of this. You know, it's in 31 months that you're really seeing true and substantial changes. Even at the five month mark, you're not seeing that much of a change. But at the 31 month mark, you know, three years into this, you're really starting to see true and substantial change and competition and camaraderie. So this is where like if you want to be able to lose weight by running, then signing up for a 5K, a half marathon, something in between, an ultra marathon, whatever, if you're crazy. But you know, signing up something where you can do those activities with people, it becomes part of your fabric, it becomes enjoyable because you've got all these people challenging you to go higher and harder. That really just makes it a lot of fun. And then celebrate, celebrate your wins, right? Celebrate your successes. Because we do this so often, we just like, oh my God, I finally achieved that goal. Okay, next, move on to the next thing. But you can't do that. You've got to celebrate your wins. Because if you don't, your body doesn't get a chance to acknowledge, your brain doesn't get a chance to acknowledge all of the hard work that you've done to this point to get you there. So celebrate your wins. You know, one of the things that he talked about is the fact that he was talking about differentiating people that are winners and not winners. So he said 99% of failures and successful folks have in common. The one thing that they have in common is they all hate doing the same thing. The difference is successful People do them anyway. Change is hard. And that's why people don't transform their bad habits, why so many people end up being unhappy or unhealthy, right? Because change is hard. It's uncomfortable to get out there every morning at 5am and go run three miles or whatever the thing is that you're trying to achieve. So just do it, just do it anyway, right? And then he starts talking about the big mo or momentum, right? And momentum is the catalyst that propels you. Momentum is hard to get going. Once it goes, it's definitely a steamroller. But if you stop doing the things that were your success items, if you stop doing your positive habits, then you lose momentum and then you gotta get back, gotta get back into the momentum of it. And it's hard, right? So routine. So set a schedule and reinforce those positive habits. And by doing that, by bookending your day, setting up time where before you get on email, before you get on Facebook, don't even get on Facebook, right before you get on all of this noise, distraction stuff, focus on your routines of positive habits, whether that's focusing on what you're grateful for. Identifying three easy workout type items that you'll do every morning. Journaling, you know, what are you targeting for the day? Set your schedule and then at the end of the day, calibrate and see what you did well, what you didn't do well, what you're going to do different next time. So these are all things that help you drive that momentum. And so he talks about his top three MVPs. Now, for those of you in the agile software world, you're thinking minimal viable product. In his case, he's talking about most valuable priorities. What are the top three things that are going to move him toward his goals and how do you move the needle toward those MVPs every day? So again, journaling is a critical activity that continues through this process. And this is where you can also capture, now you're starting to capture creative ideas, things that you want to do next, people that you want to start interacting with, big activities that you want to go to. You see trends in what's working and what's not working. So journaling is a key to success that you just have to make the time for. And if you stop spending time with Candy Crush, you know, you can actually have the time for journaling. And I'm sure many of you do it already. It's a habit that I start and then stop. Actually, Jason at the Mastermind, he got us these cool rocket books that allow you to write, and then you scan them into your Evernote or your Google Docs and then you microwave to wipe them out, which I thought was really cool because honestly, one of the challenges I have when I start journaling is I don't want to mess up the book. I want it to look perfect and pristine. Right. I'm a little OCD that way. And so I actually don't get in and start writing because I'm afraid I'm going to screw up the book and I don't want the book to look non perfect. I know it's crazy, right? But it's true. It's just how I roll. And so the fact that you can do anything on these papers, microwave, literally microwave the notebook, and then, you know, start all over again. It's perfect for me. And so that's called rocketbook. I guess it was on the Shark Tank. Jason thought it was pretty cool, so he got it for the Mastermind group. So just, you know, if you're like me, you're a little OCD about your notebooks, I suggest you try one of those. It might. And it's nice paper, too. So it's got a heavyweight paper and you have to use a specific palette pen that's erasable. For me, it's all goodness. But anyway, so I completely got off the rails. Okay. So journaling, making sure that you've got accountability partners. The other thing that he talks about that I thought was really good, it's something that my husband and I do, which is do an annual goal setting activity. So not only are you holding yourself accountable and you're validating that you actually achieved the things that you were targeting to do, and if not, how do you Course correct, but by setting annual goals in a specific and unique location, where you're going to go, you know, really think through, have time to be creative and think through your goals for the year. So last year, Neil and I went to Portugal. The year before that, we were in Key west and Panama. And then before that we were in Florence, for instance. And we would set up our goals, we'd look at our real estate targets, how we're doing on our investments. And it gave us that time to really think through family, health, wealth, what we were doing to make sure that we're going in the right, the larger direction. And we've talked a lot on this podcast about goal setting. You know, I'm a little crazy with it, but it works. So it's okay to be crazy. In this case, it's okay to be a little A little crazy about your goal setting because it works, right? And that's really what this book speaks to. So one of the last key messages in the book, you know, again, he quotes Jim Rohn, but basically he talks about the fact that the combined average of the five people that you have hang around most are the people that dictate the quality of your health, the attitude and the income that you'll have. So basically, you're of the result of the 5 average that you hang out with. And so thinking about who you're spending time with, do they reinforce your good habits? Do they reinforce negative habits? Right. So are you filling your life with people that are moving toward your goal or away from your goal? There's really no in between. With each thought action moment in time, you're moving toward it or away from it. There's very little in between. And so be really cognizant about who you're hanging out with. Find people that are quality. They can be mentors or coaches, people that are fun and positive, people that are going to uplift you. They're going to support you in your goals. They have skills that they're willing to share and that you're willing to share your time and what you have to offer with them. People that you want to invest in, people that want to invest in you. And then you can also then hold each other accountable for achieving those bigger goals based on your big why. Right? So with that, we can talk about things all day long. The most important thing is that you take action. Take action. Don't just learn about all these, you know, philosophies and processes and tools. Don't worry about perfect. Don't worry. Now you don't have to worry about a perfect notebook. You can, like, screw it all up and then microwave the ink off the paper page. It's so cool. So just take action. Move forward, move toward your success. And so with that, we'll turn it over to our guest, Sandy Franks.

It's my pleasure to introduce Sandy Franks. She's the founder of the Women's Finance alliance and author of two books, Barbarians of Wealth and the Barbarians of Oil. Sandy, welcome to the show and thanks so much for being here.

Well, thank you for inviting me. I'm excited to talk today.

Yeah, me too. So the Women's Finance alliance sounds like a great website that I want to take advantage of. Can you tell your listeners a little bit about yourself and how you established the wfa?

Yes, I actually worked for a newsletter publisher, probably one of the largest in the country. It's Agora Incorporated. There are about a half a billion in sales, probably closer to the 700 million mark in sales. And so they, you know, they're worldwide. They had, they have offices here in the US but they have offices in other countries including China, Australia, India, Germany, London, etc. Yes, has grown. When I started with a company, you know, there was maybe 20 people and we worked out of a little three story row home that had been converted into office space and now it's just grown into a behemoth of a publishing company and they publish all kinds of things. So financial newsletters that are targeted to do it yourself. Investors who want to invest in the stock market and just want that extra edge of advice and maybe they have a broker, but they just want to be current on, you know, what's happening in the stock market. They do travel publications, they do lifestyle and they do health. So I mostly worked on the financial side. I started with the company, as I was saying, as a little company. I started as a marketing assistant and then as the company grew, that opened the door for more opportunity and I wound up running one of their divisions, which was their flagship financial division. And it Taipan Publishing Group, it's not there anymore, but that was one of their first financial divisions. And so that's sort of how I got into this and went as a publisher. Working in that industry, you work alongside some really, really smart people. Most of the people who were editors and wrote our newsletters were actually ex Wall street professionals. So you have One person I work with was a hedge fund manager, $100 million hedge fund, decided, hey look, I had enough of this Wall street rat race. And maybe his deeper passion was to write. So now he had a chance to write about his thoughts and his worldview of investing through newsletters. So you get entrenched into learning how the world of investing works. Because when I first started, I didn't actually know what a mutual fund was. I'd be like, what is that? Do people know what these are? I mean, that's just.

There was a learning curve involved.

It sounds like.

Exactly. It was a very, you know, naive is so young back then. But then, you know, the more you get into it, the more you around it, the more you understand it and the more you surround yourself with that level of people who just sort of just teach you everything. And so that's sort of how I got into the whole, you know, financial aspect of stuff. But what I noticed along my journey is that predominantly, and it still exists today, but predominantly, especially in the Financial field and in the newsletter, financial news, publishing industry, everything that we wrote was targeted to men. And you know, we used to call on the grumpy old men who, you know, had some disposable money trying to figure out how to make their retirements very comfortable. And so they were very interested in investing. And so everything we wrote, from the actual editorial content to our advertising message was always geared toward men. And, you know, it just always struck me as odd. Why don't we have anything that is female centric? And in that company, most of the executives are men. And so they sort of have the same. Unfortunately, they have the same stereotypes that a lot of people have about women and money. You know, women, they're not interested in this kind of stuff. They might spend money on a person's shoes.

Money on helping themselves when it comes to making financial decisions, which I just thought was like, you know, this is, I don't believe this to be true, but that's sort of that stereotype that persists. So what happened is in a really, I think I really should give credit to a lot of this to my husband because his mom and dad had a traditional marriage, probably like most marriages where the man does almost all the finances. So when his dad passed away, his mother inherited this money and then all these, you know, she didn't really write checks, so she had to start managing money and wasn't sure what to do with it. Now, luckily for her, she has five children who could help her make some good decisions. But, you know, we were. As this process was unfolding, my husband Mark and I were talking and he would say, you know, wonder how many other women are out there in the same situation. So it's just sort of putting the two together. So having this financial coming up in this world of, you know, financial and then seeing, hey, look, why aren't there more women? And then having that conversation, it seemed natural to create something that women could use as a resource to help them make better investing decisions, specifically with the goal of preparing for retirement. So that's kind of. Sit down. A dream version of how this whole thing started. And I actually, I have retired from Agora. I retired about two and a half years ago. And at that time I decided, well, I'm going to, I want this to be my full time focus is, you know, really voting out the women's financial alliance. So I spend the majority of time on that. I do a little bit of marketing consulting to companies, so I help them with some of their advertising and honing their, for their brand. That kind of thing. But this is really, for me, the passion is helping women figure out ways that they can become financially secure, because, you know, I want that too. So I'm trying to share my journey and my discoveries and sharing that with women who come to my website. So that's kind of the backstory.

It's really fascinating because I personally had been working in technology where there. There wasn't a whole lot of women. Today, there are definitely more. But, you know, you hit the nail on the head when you're talking about why are you not paying attention to or catering to people that have such a large amount of wealth and if they. Even if they didn't start with that amount of wealth, they grew it themselves or they grew it through, you know, the relationships and then inheriting. Women live longer than men, so having the fiscal or financial education is so critical, particularly as women, you know, start planning for their financial freedom. Right.

Their retirement components.

So who's the target audience for the Women's Finance Alliance? You've talked about women that are thinking about retiring, but really, who are the people that should be paying attention to the site?

I would say that the ideal range is women who probably, like, 40, 45 up to 65, 70. It sort of goes that range. So although one of the primary focuses is trying to plan for retirement, it's also about educating women before you even get to that point. So, you know, the earlier that we can impart this knowledge into women, the better. Because for years, and this is another thing I found in talking to women about this subject is, and I can just tell you from my experience, you know, when I think back to when I was a little girl, I didn't talk about money. My mother never had those conversations with me. And I think that that's true for a big portion of women where we don't have conversations. Mothers don't sit down and say, hey, look, you need to prepare. You need to be able to figure out how to make financial decisions, and you don't necessarily need to rely on a man to do it. So those conversations don't really happen. And I think what's happened over the years is that women in general, we have a tendency sometimes to be a little uncomfortable with talking about money. And, you know, even, you know, a lot of times I'll hear, oh, but the world isn't. I think it just feels so complex.

Where do you think that discomfort comes from? Does it come from the fact that it's not familiar or because they're not welcome or.

I think it's a combination. I think it's something that we're never really taught or keyed in on. And so it comes from that. And you know, here's an example. If you think back to like, you know, when they had talking Barbie dolls, remember that you pull the string and you said like 20 things. One of the things she would say is mess is complicated. So there's already this mindset, you know, that, you know, and a lot of it too. I've read this really good book about the female brain and you know, there's a perception out there that, you know, our brains are smaller, therefore we're not as smart. So that's why Barbie can say math is complicated because we don't have the brain capacity to compute, understand numbers. But what science has found is the size of our brain has nothing to do with any of that.

Right?

So there's a little bit of this preconceived notion that, you know, women just aren't good with this stuff. And then the other thing that happens is, you know, the financial industry is a male dominated industry. And this is not a knock against men, but in the world that I came from, totally dominated by men, but one step removed from that. When a husband and wife go to a financial planner or their broker and sit down and have conversations, it's generally a man because there's very few women in the world of finances. So the man generally has the conversation and the whole time is looking directly at the husband and ignoring the woman. So all of this kind of converges together to create this ideology that, hey, you know, money and investing, it's just too complicated for us to understand. But it's so not true. Because what I have found is that if we just take the time to explain things a little better and speak in a woman's language, we got it. And we get it really well to the point that I have a lot of friends, I still and in contact with, you know, people that are still in the, you know, financial investing world. And I have people, a lot of men who have, like traders and these are people, you know, traders like options and all those things. And so you. They'll constantly reach out to me because what they're finding is that they can appeal to women. And it turns out that women seem to be a little bit better at that because once they get it, they get it. And so what I try to do when I write, I publish an E letter three times a week. And so what I try to do is I'll run some guest editorial, but Then I'm also trying to break things down in a way that we can relate to because, you know, women are more emotional, for sure. And so what doesn't appeal to me and what doesn't appeal to a lot of women when we're talking about investing is, hey, guess what, Elizabeth? I'm going to give you a hotel stock tip, and I'm going to show you how you make 1000% return on that. That's not what excites us about investing. It's more about the end goal. What's it going to do for me, my family? Those kind of issues become important. It's not about being able to brag that we just found a stock that made a huge return. That's not it for us. It's more. I have a saying investing is personal and should be that way so, you know, it isn't. I don't want to talk about 1,000% returns on stocks. One, those are very hard to come by. But that's not the end goal for me. It more is about do I feel good about this company. And it has nothing to do with being, you know, ethical investing. It's just my personal sense of how this is going to reward myself, my family. Those bigger picture things come to mind when we talk about investing and particularly for women.

So women as a demographic, it seems, are on the verge of an evolution or a revolution. What do they need to know about their personal finances, but also about their collective financial power?

I think we're heading toward a huge transformation of wealth as far as it comes to women. Right now in the US we have a tremendous amount of purchasing power and influence about somewhere in the range of 80 to 85% of women actually influence almost all household purchasing decisions. Small things from, you know, getting a new washing machine to buying a car, all the way up to, you know, the house they should buy. So we have a huge impact on everything we make. 80% of healthcare decisions are made by women. 68% of new car purchases made by women. Travel, vacation. Like 90% of vacation choices are made by women. I can go on and on. We have a huge influence on purchasing decisions. But here's something else to keep in mind is that we're coming into our own little genre or realm of being a huge economic power. We think of the US you think about the US and their gross domestic output is about 18 trillion. China's 11 trillion a year. Japan is 4.7 trillion women. In the US we have purchasing power that equates to about $5 trillion globally. We're 20 trillion. And it's estimated that number is going to grow to about 40 trillion. So we. And our.

That's a whole lot of purchasing power.

My gosh.

Exactly. We could be outpacing some of these other countries that are considered dominant, you know, economic superpowers. And the other thing that's happening, too, one of the reasons that's occurring this is that, you know, we are outliving men. Women outlive men probably about maybe five to six years. I think that's the latest study I saw from Scientific American. So what's going to happen is, sort of goes back to what I was describing earlier was my husband's mother, is that, you know, we're going to outlive our spouses. And so all of a sudden we'll be in charge of a chunk of money. So we need to be in a position if we're going to be taking charge of money to figure out what to do with it. And the fact that now women are starting to get into positions where they can become the CEOs of companies, it's slowly happening. I mean, right now it's not a huge amount, but it's slowly migrating that way. I think right now, about 5% of all CEOs in the US are women. Only 5%. So we're starting to get there. I mean, think about it in a global perspective. Like Janet Yellen is now the head of the Federal Reserve. So we have a woman in a very powerful position, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany. You know what I mean? So we're starting to see, you know, that women can getting these big positions.

There's traction and momentum. That's certainly happening right now.

Yeah, exactly.

I noticed that you had a lot of amazing reports on your website. Some of them literally gave me goosebumps.

Goosebumps.

What goes into producing these reports because they're really compelling and they're really critical for me to know as an investor.

You know, it's a lot of time and research. So, you know, and as I said, right now I feel like it should be a ton more information. I write three times a week to. I have about 15,000 people right now that are reading my free E letter. And so I write to them three times a week. And then on I'm posting whatever else I can on my website. So it's a tremendous amount of time in research. And so I'm constantly trying to find things that I think would be interesting and things that are relevant, whatever news events that dominate right now. I try to find A way to parlay that into things that are relevant to us as women. So it's a tremendous amount of research, time spent and then just the writing and putting it all together. But this is a passion project for me. So I don't look at it as like, oh, this is so much work. I look at it as, this is really good information. This is really good stuff that I think every woman should know and be aware of. So I kind of approach it in that aspect. But again, I feel like, yeah, I feel like it should be a lot more.

I love the fact that you're empowering others through your own passion.

I think that that's really a neat trait in that you've got this information.

And you simply want to share it.

With others to make sure that they're really thinking about their financial future in.

A well informed way from a well informed place.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that just comes from, you know, as I explained earlier in my journey, just seeing this void that, you know, no one's really taking the time to speak to women about their financial concerns. A way that we can relate to. It's mostly as I call, man speak. So I'm just trying to put information out there that a woman could relate to and feel comfortable. And you're absolutely right. And I love the word empowering because that's ultimately what I hope would happen. That as women become more comfortable and can read what I'm posting and feel good about it. Oh yeah, yeah, I get it. I understand. Oh, that's not so hard. That's not so bad. They'll be more encouraged to take control of their financial futures so that, you know, the end goal is, you know, I believe every woman should be able to live a healthy and financially secure life. And so that starts with education and getting that empowerment, which leads to confidence, which gives us the ability to accomplish all kinds of things.

Absolutely.

Sandy, you have a report that you produced called how to choose the right investment 5 point checklist. Can you tell us a little more about that?

So basically it's a report I put together and the whole goal is to help women sort of take a little bit of an introspective look at themselves when it comes to finding their risk tolerance when it comes to investing. So like say on a scale 1 to 5, 1 being low, 5 being really high, it's a set of questions designed to sort of make you think about that, like, where is your risk tolerance? And then once you're able to figure that, it kind of gives you a path of where you should be putting your money. If you want to go invest in the stock market, maybe you want to do dividends because you'll get paid a return on it. Maybe, as we said earlier, some women are starting getting into trading. Maybe you want to do a little bit that. So it's sort of a way to kind of gauge how you would approach investing so then you can figure out what kind of investments make sense for you. And it's available. Your listeners can go to the website, just put in their email address, and we'll send a copyright to them.

Terrific. I want to switch topics a little bit. One of the things that I was really intrigued with was you have two books about barbarians, Barbarians of Wealth and Barbarians of Oil. Why barbarians?

You know, it's funny, the first book came out probably a couple, maybe six months, eight months after we had the Great Recession of 2007, 2008. You know, I just wanted to know, how did that happen? How did we get to a point where we could have people on Wall street basically playing financial suicide with everyone's money? So as I started researching, it occurred to me that in many instances, the stuff that they did, and it's all detailed in the book, you know, it's like a. There was a purpose, purposely mindset to more or less put money in their coffers and with little regard for individuals or us ordinary people. And it kind of reminded me of how barbarians would act, you know, think about way. Go way back, you know, history. And barbarians would go and invade countries, take all of the goods for themselves and leave the people with nothing. So it kind of felt like me. To me, there was a similar thing happening. And so to me, it felt like, you know, the perfect way or word to embody what we were experiencing. Yeah, absolutely was that same thing. And so then for Barbarians of Oil, which is really looking at the oil industry and kind of looking at it in that same light, there's a lot of stuff that goes on in that industry with Big Oil that is meant, you know, mainly to prop up their profits with little regard to us as individuals or, you know, the environment. So it was sort of that same kind of concept, like, let's really see what's happening here and put it in terminology that we can all, like, relate to.

We're going to have to have you back so we can go further into these details. Jason and I. Jason's the co podcast co chair, and he and I have very different political views. And I can tell he. I wouldn't say that he's a Staunch Republican at all.

Right.

He's more of a libertarian, but his political bend and mine are very different. And I can tell you that I am just so encouraged by alternative energies that are coming into play. But yet it seems like oil is really got a stranglehold on the world right now. So I definitely want to have you back so we can talk more about those books.

That could be a fun conversation for sure.

Maybe we'll have Jason on there, too. And again, he's more libertarian, but I'd love to get the conversation between the three of us would be fascinating.

Exactly. Yeah.

Sandy, is there anything that we haven't covered today that you want to make sure that our listeners are aware of?

I think the most important thing for the listeners to. To take away is that it is totally possible to take control of your financial future. You don't have to put it in the hands of another person. It doesn't have to be in the hands of a broker. And I mean this in the nicest way. It doesn't even have to be in the hands of your husband. You can take control of your destiny. And so I think it's important to keep that always in the back of our mind. And we have to be proactive here. We can't really necessarily be reactive when it comes to trying to prepare for retirement or even just trying to get ourselves in a path where we feel financially secure. You know, nothing really happens by accident. It is because of the things that we do. And so if anyone has ever heard, you know, oh, you can't do it, you're not smart enough. Investing is complicated. It's way too much. That is so not true. As I said earlier, I didn't know what a mutual fund was when I started, but I certainly know now, and I have learned so much more. It's really just a matter of just taking an interest in it and kind of breaking it down into baby steps and realizing that there is so much potential for women. And as we said, if we're coming into this huge transformation, now is the perfect time to be armed with knowledge so that you can live a financially secure life and not have to worry, you know, what's going to happen when I finally retire, what will my life be like?

I love that sentiment of not only can you empower yourself, not only can you learn more, but you should, you must, because it's all about you at the end of the day, Right?

Absolutely. And I would love the more that we can get women involved in this conversation to pass those conversations down to their daughters so that we're creating a generation of very wise, smart women when it comes to finances and that we can sort of get rid of that Barbie who thinks math is complicated and just kind of put her in the closet and never have her come out again.

I like that idea. So, Sandy, can you give out your website and where people can buy your.

Books so they can go to thewomensfinancialalliance.com and they can pick up their free report there? There's also a page, the resource page, that where they can buy their book and they can get through Amazon, too, but they can get them off the website. So again, that's thewomensfinancialalliance.com terrific.

Well, Sandy Franks, founder of the Women's Finance alliance and author of the Barbarians of Wealth and the Barbarians of Oil and an empowerer of Women, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you for having me. Great discussion.

Thank you so much for listening to the Women Investing Network. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the show on itunes or the platform of your choice. You can find the show notes and resources for today's episode@womeninvestingnetwork.com remember that guest opinions are their own and information is of general nature, so be sure to consult appropriate tax, legal or other professionals for specific advice.